Great Wall Hobby Douglas TBD-1 Devastator 1:48

Wings and things…

Talking of wings the kit gives the modeller the option of folded or extended wings. Whichever option you take be reassured the fit is good and the fit straight forward; there are even moulded metal parts to strengthen the wing attachment of the two wing sections if you opt for the folded option. I personally opted for the extended wings as I wanted to show of the unique colour scheme I had chosen but more of that later. The join of the outer wing sections to the inner sections is excellent with no annoying gaps;  it is always nice to know that a when a kit offers the modeller two options in the instructions both are usable without any major corrective surgery..

With the wings in place it was back to the cockpit and remember what I said in the previous paragraph about options in the kit working , well the open cockpit option doesn`t work at all !! The kit contains a one piece closed canopy and an open canopy option that consists of each individual section. The problem with this is the plastic is way too thick to allow each section to sit correctly on top of the next. I spent quite a bit of time trying to work out a solution for this but the only one I could come up with was to try and form a clear vacform replacement using  each section as a mould master. If I opted to go down this road things were just going to get too complicated and time consuming so the closed canopy option was used!! It was a bit of a shame as the canopies being opened on pilot`s and gunner’s positions would have looked really good and you could have seen some of that great detail inside a lot better. Talking of which the kit contains a really nice, but very delicate, bomb aiming sight which again is a nice touch from GWH.

Read on…